


Live to Tell

by codenamecynic



Series: It came from the tumblr-verse [17]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Music, Regret, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke returns home alone after the Deep Roads expedition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live to Tell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bettydice (BettyKnight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyKnight/gifts).



> Inspired by [this beautiful piano piece](http://codenamecynic.tumblr.com/post/116663517922/bettydice-codenamecynic-asked-hawke-meant-no) by bettydice

The sun is gone. 

Gray rolls low and heavy over the spires of Hightown, brushing ghostly fingers over eaves and window panes like thieves, come to steal the warmth of the fading day.  Night is not far off, dusk banished to the edges and yet the sky purples like a bruise, pulsing red with places made raw, clouds worn through where rain spills out like a cup overturned.

It can’t be refilled, that cup, not anymore than blood from rent flesh can seep back into the veins it escaped.  Once lost it is forever lost, only dregs and scars to tell the tale.

The memory of Bethany’s laughter slides around her on the breeze, fleeting, serpentine, cold in its absence.  There will always be absence.  She will be empty forever, like a scabbard whose blade was broken, a lock where no other key can fit. 

Alone at the precipice of change – the abyss is deep, the fall long for one who has never flown, but runs, runs like rabbit hearts beneath the shadow of the wolf.  There is no bridge, only a step out into the darkness with fervent wishes, hopes like a handful of pebbles carried on the backs of birds, feathers ruffled in breezes that turn so soon to storms.  The dank dust of Lowtown stirs up around her feet as she moves, one foot before the other, eyes like the sun behind the clouds, faded behind a veil of unshed tears.

She never meant any harm.  She only ever did what she thought was right. 

What was found can never replace what was lost.  The gold in her pockets weighs her down like stones dragging her toward the bottom of the ocean, and climbing up the short flight of stairs to the warren she calls home is like walking into the sea.  Success is bitter salt, waves that crash overhead, pulling the fibers of her body apart until there is nothing left but threads, greedy for the taste of her regret. 

Rain erodes grooves into her flesh, gouges deep roads through the blood and dirt, and still she will never be clean.  Her skin is grey as the sky, streaks of ash that drift like soft voices that scream - _it should have been you, it should have been you, it should have been -_

She should have gone alone, or never lived to tell.


End file.
